This invention relates generally to storage systems and, more particularly, to an apparatus and a method of monitoring a hard disk drive for usage, warranty, and pricing.
Current warranty rules only take into account the purchase data and/or manufacturing data when determining if a given hard disk drive (HDD) should be repaired or replaced under the warranty agreement. Warranties are normally given in years from the date of sale. This warranty scheme is inadequate.
In the past, when the interface of the drive typically determined the type of use for the HDD, the level of resolution used was somewhat inadequate. Today, there is a blurring between a desktop model HDD and an enterprise HDD. A desktop model HDD has a lower price than an enterprise HDD and has a 3-5 year warranty based on the fact that a typical PC user does not stress the HDD very much. It is important to be able to clearly distinguish between the two with respect to usage and warranties. In particular, as more desktop class HDDs with Serial ATA (SATA) interface are used in enterprise applications such as storage arrays, there will be a larger amount of HDDs that malfunction within the warranty period as a result of the higher utilization and harsher environment of typical storage arrays. This extra cost will be passed onto the HDD manufacturers. It is difficult to determine the manner in which current HDDs have been used without incurring heavy costs and performing time-consuming testing.
Because some computers with desktop model HDDs are used for enterprise solutions, it is important to offer PC users longer year warranties and to avoid extending the same warranty into high utilization applications. In addition, it is desirable to extend a fair warranty into high utilization applications. Therefore, there is a need to base warranty on predicable and known factors. Because the warranty is no longer year-based, it is essential to be able to determine the status of the warranty.
It is usually hard to determine how and when an HDD was used, especially when it is no longer working. For warranty purposes, it is desirable to determine if the HDD was used outside of the original system while it was powered down, and whether the HDD was used within the terms of the warranty. The HDD usage information is also desirable for failure analysis and to determine design vulnerabilities or the like.
One current technique for monitoring HDD usage is Self-Monitoring and Reporting Technology (SMART). SMART monitors events that are likely to result in HDD failure, and provides an early warning of drive failure based on detected performance degradation. SMART acts as an interface between a computer's start-up program or BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) and the HDD. Three elements are required for SMART to succeed: a SMART capable hard drive, an operating system that accepts and relays SMART commands, and a SMART application that displays these commands to the user. Because there is no standard associated with SMART, the SMART application is often omitted or inactive and hence failure alerts from the HDD tend to be ignored.